England are considering a formal complaint over the Snicko technology being used in this Ashes series after Alex Carey received a lifeline en route to a telling century on the opening day of the third Test.
Carey, who made 106 in Australia’s 326 for eight by stumps, was on 72 when Josh Tongue believed the left-hander had edged behind. He was given not out on the field and the third umpire, Chris Gaffaney, felt he did not have enough evidence to overturn the decision despite a spike showing up on the review.
This issue in this instance was that the spike came before any possible contact on the replay, whereas similar occurrences earlier in the series have seen it come afterwards and are factored into the umpiring protocols.
With Carey later admitting he thought he had hit the ball – the wicketkeeper said he would have reviewed in hope had it been given out on the field – BBG, the company that owns Snicko, owned up to the mistake, which came with Australia 245 for six.
In a statement to BBC Sport, BBG said: “The only conclusion that can be drawn from this, is that the Snicko operator at the time must have selected the incorrect stump mic for audio processing. In light of this, BBG Sports takes full responsibility for the error.”
The technology uses audio from the stump microphones and in this instance it is believed the feed from the one at the non-striker’s end may have been used in error. Either way, England were unhappy, with the bowling coach, David Saker, indicating a complaint to the match referee, Jeff Crowe, may follow.
“The boys were pretty confident he hit it,” said Saker. “I think the calibration of the Snicko is out quite a bit and that has probably been the case for the series. There’s been some things that don’t really measure up.
“At that stage it was a pretty important decision. Those things hurt, but you get through it. In this day and age you’d think the technology is good enough to pick things up like that. I don’t think we’ve done anything about it so far but after today, maybe that might go a bit further. There have been concerns all series. We shouldn’t be talking about this after a day’s play, it should be better than that.”
While technology is mandatory in the World Test Championship, the Real Time Snicko product used by Fox Sports, the host broadcaster in Australia, is considered inferior to the Ultra-Edge system used by Sky Sports in England.
Carey said: “I thought there was a bit of a feather or some sort of noise when it passed the bat. It looked a bit funny on the replay, didn’t it, with the noise coming early? If I was given out, I think I would have reviewed it – probably not confidently though. It was a nice sound as it passed the bat.
“Snicko obviously didn’t line up, did it? That’s just the way cricket goes sometimes. You have a bit of luck, and maybe it went my way today.”
